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A Ritual of Flesh
I leisurely gazed at the planet. Before me, was the exposed core of a planet being disassembled into raw materials. Gases were siphoned off and the solid interior of the planet was dismantled. Just about everyone has been scrambling off their feet since the Tor Crisis. While I was born after the event, the effects are still apparent and ongoing. Reconstruction has been slow, but for the losses we had suffered this was the best that we could do. Things that we used to take for granted were now in short supply, and problems that existed before the crisis have only become worse with no one attending them. I sighed, even though I have no need to breathe. Life is hard, and most of the surviving civilisations in the Weave were taking any uninhabited planet they could find and dismantling them for materials. I looked to see the last pieces of the planet’s core being taken apart by a nanomachine swarm. Levitating to the centre of a large room, I activated my interface. I took cursory glances at the various systems within the datascape and scanned for any changes. An indicator flashed. An anomaly. Flashing on the interface for a few moments, the indicator faded as if the anomaly was gone. Scanning the whole datascape, I found a lone individual. Bipedal, humanoid, but not of any race I can identify. Covered in chitin and bone, its face was obscured. The figure turned around to face the sensor, before fading away. The alarm activated immediarely. The whole datascape locked down, and a domain was released. Hundreds of thousands of drones swarmed out of portals and swarms of nanomachines actively scanned the area for unidentified targets, ready to dismantle any victim unfortunate enough to be captured.. I contacted an adjacent datascape. Quickly sending in a report of an anomaly, more units were sent in. After the last units were sent in, I was contacted by one of them. An armoured figure with the number 822 on its breastplate appeared in hologram to my right. “Captain, I have found traces of the anomaly. It’s on these coordinates.” Nodding my head at the statement, I quickly teleported to the marked coordinates. A dark haze emanated about, obscuring all the sensors in the datascape. My senses dulled and my vision blurred. Everything around me went by in a flash. As the haze started to clear up, I noticed my surroundings had changed. I felt as if a were thousand creatures crawling underneath my skin. I gazed at my surroundings. A horrifying flesh cavern assaulted my eyes. Spires of twisted bone and sinew connected the ceiling and floor, with pungent clouds of red and yellow emanating from the walls. Yellow, viscous fluid dripped from the ceiling like pus and ran in rivers along the length of this cavern of flesh. Along the walls of the cave I could see the shapes and silhouettes of gaping faces. I hurriedly attempted to contact the datascapes and the Weave. I tried activating my sensors. Nothing. No response. Without the Weave or the datascapes to cheat death, I felt exposed and vulnerable. Panicking, I tried to accelerate. My body won’t move. I tried checking the state of my body manually, but I can’t move my head either. I struggled, but everything was the same. I was immobilised. My panic growing, my eyes dart, looking to find some way out of this wretched place. “Do not resist, young one.” I started calming down. The androgynous voice that echoed through the cavern was both soothing and compelling. “Follow me, young one” I felt my body regaining its movement and I followed the stranger. Not knowing how or why, I had started trusting this stranger and his words. I want to resist his will, but it his words, his COMMANDS, they felt natural. Natural to follow them. Walking further, I was greeted by an organised hall. Pillars of bone and chitin stood tall and proud, glowing with a metallic sheen. Beside each pillar large fleshy tendrils formed in shapes that were a perversion of nature. At the end of a hall I saw the earlier anomalous figure, seated on a throne of shining bone and glistening flesh. The one seated on the throne was covered head to toe in bone and chitin. Its upper body was disproportionately thin, appearing emaciated and malnourished as if it were a living mummy. Its lower body and legs appeared thick and powerful, evoking the imagery of large predators. It was a perversion, a blight. Yet, despite all this, it had a grotesque beauty, its shape holding a repulsive charm. Lying behind the throne was a suit of armour. It had 822 on the breastplate. Before the throned figure were dozens of the bloated and disfigured. They were no longer identifiable by their native races. They danced awkwardly and clumsily in hideous motions. Some appeared joyful and energetic. Some appeared to be in pain and despair. All of them showed a madness in their movements. “Welcome. Are you here to accept our gift?” “What gift?” I barely croaked out. “We are Necroans. What we grant is the gift of The Flesh.” “How are you Necroans? Their race are no longer the bioweapons Marathoth used for wa-“ “Our kin, and our god-ancestor Necroa have long since abandoned their original purpose at the behest of that Void God. We however, still remember it. We still spread the glory of The Flesh. The Flesh guides us, and I am its prophet.” “Prophet of Flesh, what do you intend of me?” “We accept you into our embrace, young one. Become one of us.” “Become a monster?” “Why, you are mistaken. Those who accept its gift are strengthened and enlightened, united, as one with The Flesh. Their bodies swell to contain its glory and The Flesh whispers enlightenment unto those blessed by it.” “And if I refuse your ‘gift’?” “Then you shall be part of The Flesh, but without mind nor body, like the ones you see in the cavern walls. However, do you still believe you can reject us, when your body had accepted its embrace the moment you arrived?” I looked down. My torso and chest had bloated, and my limbs had shrivelled. I felt around for my implants. Not even they were spared. Malformed metal growths had sprouted on my body. My skin was red, and some areas were blackened and blighted, The Flesh Prophet seemed to be celebrating, as if he had converted a heretic to his cause. His posture and movements held smugness and pride. I heard a whisper. Turning my head around to see where it came from, I heard another whisper. I turned my head once again. Whisper after whisper came, and soon, it was a maddening chorus. I clutched my head, wanting to break it open to end this insanity. Yet, the whispers were so compelling that I cannot defy them. I laugh. In this madness that was all I could do. With an unsteady gait, I joined the revellers. My will is the same as the Flesh. The tiny voice of defiance in my head has been silenced. It is me. Just as I am part of It. Category:Short Stories